


if you loved me (why'd you leave me)

by ArsenicInYourPudding



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentioned OCs, Panic Attacks, bitty's seen some shit okay, discussion of the perils of growing up gay in a less than gay-friendly area, see inside for notes, tw: discussions of teen suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 14:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6289066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsenicInYourPudding/pseuds/ArsenicInYourPudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, missed phone calls are the scariest thing you'll ever face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you loved me (why'd you leave me)

**Author's Note:**

> This week has been super weird and stressful and I had a suicide scare with my ex-roommate's husband last weekend and it's still kind of fucking me up, so I'm projecting. Bitty was just closest, I guess. 
> 
> Charlie and Danny are OCs, that Bitty knew from like third grade through high school. More notes on them will be at the end of the fic.

Usually, Eric's okay. He doesn't have crippling survivor's guilt, he gets a decent amount of sleep, he doesn't let it take over his life. He made it through Danny's birthday just fine, and the anniversary last year was hard but he survived that too. It's sad, and he misses Danny like hell some days, but he's had three years to process it now and anyway, it just boils down to a really unfortunate statistic when he's tired enough. Hardly anyone can get through high school without going to at least one funeral.

He makes a habit of calling Charlie on the anniversary, early enough that they can get in a few rounds of phone tag and still talk before the day's over. They talked for hours last year, only a quick check-in the year before, but it still helps, hearing from someone who knows what happened, how it feels.

But now, it's 9pm and something is wrong. Charlie doesn't just not return phone calls, and it's been almost eleven hours since he left her a sad, quiet voicemail and reluctantly committed himself to getting out of bed. At first, Eric didn't mind - she's managing the rink and trying to deal with her family and maybe she just hasn't checked her phone recently. But the hours wore on, homework and a run and deciding he was too frazzled to bake and jogging over to Faber for some solo ice time, and the knot in Eric's stomach doesn't go away. It's familiar enough to make him sick, this awful certainty that something is wrong, that your life is disintegrating and you could stop it, if you were there, but you're not, so you just have to bite your nails and wait.

He caves at 9:30 and calls again, pacing the locker room in stocking feet. “Charlotte Anne,” he tells the phone sternly, hating the way his throat gets tight and his voice wobbles, “I _really_ need you to call me back, this isn't funny. Just give me five minutes, I'm-- Y'all’re scarin’ me. _Please.”_

She doesn't call him back. The clock ticks past 10, 11, and he decides that he can't go back to the Haus until he hears from her, because of all the things the team might chirp him for, getting him for crying on the phone about _this_ is the one thing he couldn't handle. He paces in the locker room, he laces up his skates again and takes a few laps around the rink, he paces in the locker room again. He stares anxiously at his phone. Briefly, he considers calling his mom - she’d probably know if something was going on - but she worries enough as it is. He'd rather not give her extra reasons.

But the anxiety grows, sitting heavy in his chest. He leaves Charlie one more frantic voicemail that dissolves into tears twenty seconds in, and his throat is so constricted he feels like he can't breathe at all. The thought of something happening to Charlie bleeds into the memory of finding Danny, of paramedics and flashing lights and somewhere, Charlie's wailing and somewhere else, louder somehow, Danny's mother's stone-faced silence. Memory and imagination swirl faster and faster, mixing until they’re indistinguishable - Charlie’s face in an open casket surrounded by Danny’s family, Danny slumped over the steering wheel in the shattered remains of Charlie’s truck.

He registers footsteps on tile, but he’s too far inside his own head to do anything about it. “Bitty,” someone calls - Lardo, maybe, but he’s not sure - but he’s tucked up against the wall, his back pressed into the corner with his knees pulled up under his chin. His fingers are digging painfully into his shoulders, trying to get some sort of control back, but he can’t breathe and he can’t decide if he wants to and his head hurts and he can’t see anything more than shapes through the hot blur of tears. He can't see the door, and the door's vantage point can't see him, and by the time the footsteps circle into the room, his face is buried in his knees and he can't hear anything over the pulsing in his ears, _your fault you left your fault you left your fault you left your fault you left--_

There are hands on his shoulders, and Eric flinches back away from them, hard enough that he smacks his shoulder against the tile in a way that might not bruise _badly_ but will still likely leave a mark. The hands disappear as quickly as they arrived, and the ebb and flow of blood pounding in his ears eases enough that he can hear Lardo - definitely Lardo - say, “Yes, I _know_ , law school sucks balls, but Bitty’s-- I’ve never seen him like this, I don’t know what to do, Shitty, I need _help_.”

Part of Eric listens to her describe him with frantic descriptors like “losing it,” and he’d be sort of offended except he _is_ losing it, he might already have lost _it_ or _her_ or whatever pronoun you wanted to use to refer to his last remaining childhood best friend. He can’t quite get a breath in and he doesn’t know that he wants one, no one in the world knows him like Charlie and he’s not sure he could survive without her--

The hands return, one on his chest and the other on his back, unfolding him back into the wall. “Bitty,” Lardo says, and she’s scared but she’s calm, calmer than him obviously, and she rubs a small circle into his sternum to try to get him to breathe. “Bitty, it’s gonna be okay, I need you to focus on me right now, just stay with me here, okay?” He can see her phone still tucked between her ear and her shoulder, and her hands are warm through his t-shirt and that just makes him cry harder, that his life is falling apart and no one else is _devastated_ by this like he is, at least he has his family kind of but Danny and Charlie don’t-- _didn’t_ have _anyone_ but him and he _failed_ \--

“Dude, please call Jack,” Lardo says, and it’s small and quiet but Jack’s name brings everything back down to something that doesn’t feel quite as life-ending. Lardo wraps her arms around him, binding his arms to his sides and pulling his head in against her neck. He moves one arm enough to clutch at her, squeezing tightly, and oh god the last time he hugged anyone this hard was Danny’s funeral, wasn’t it, what’s he gonna do for Charlie’s, is he going to have to miss a game, if he goes home will he be able to make himself come back _at all_ \--

They sit like that for Eric doesn’t know how long, Lardo’s fingers in his hair and him sobbing against her manager hoodie, everything spiralling and feeding off each other until it’s a perpetual motion machine of panic and guilt and grief. At one point, Lardo says something over his head, he’s not sure to who but he thinks he hears Ransom’s voice for a split second. She holds him still and whispers platitudes that don’t help and everything feels so out of control like he’s drowning in it, until her head shifts against his and she says, “ _Jack_ ,” like letting go of a weight held for too long.

Larger hands slide over his shoulders and around his jaw, and when Eric looks up, Jack is sitting on the floor on the other side of his knees from Lardo, looking immeasurably, immeasurably sad. “Come here,” he says softly, pulling him up out of Lardo’s grip and into his own. Eric ends up mostly in his lap, tucked sloppily against his chest, arms pinned against his waist because he was still clinging to Lardo when Jack pulled him over. Jack’s chest rises and falls in an easy, deliberate rhythm, each breath rocking Eric back and forth a little bit, ruffling through his hair on the exhale. “Shh, I’ve got you,” Jack breathes, stroking his fingertips along the back of Eric’s neck. “I know, I know. One breath at a time, okay?”

Eric clutches at the side of Jack’s t-shirt with one hand. “I c-- I can’t--”

“Shh,” Jack says again as Eric chokes on it, pressing his lips to the top of Eric’s head. “You can, I know it’s hard but you can, I promise, okay?” He takes a slow, deep breath, and Eric tries to mimic it, only managing a short, rough gasp before his throat constricts and he starts coughing. Jack rubs his back through it and tightens his grip around Eric’s chest to hold him in place until he can catch his breath again. The fit passes after a minute, and Eric slumps against Jack’s chest, still sobbing into his t-shirt.

“You got here fast,” Lardo says quietly as Eric presses his forehead against Jack’s bicep and tries to curl into a tighter ball.

“Mm? Oh, I was already halfway here,” Jack replies over Eric’s back. “Greg invited me to dinner at their place. I...might have broken a few traffic laws on the way up.”

Lardo snorts at that and slips her hand into the one Eric doesn’t have clenched in the fabric of Jack’s shirt. “Bitty,” she says carefully, sliding her free hand through Eric’s bangs, “what’s going on? C’mon, babe, talk to us.”

He chokes and presses his face tighter into Jack’s shoulder. “She’s-- She’s _gone_ and I didn’t-- I should’ve called and-- And I can’t-- She’s--” He babbles himself into another mess until Jack shushes him, taking a few more deep breaths for him to mimic to get himself under control again.

“Aw, Bits,” someone says from the door, and this time Eric has his wits about him enough that he can lift his head a little in response. Shitty wastes no time crossing the locker room and plopping down between Lardo and Jack.

“Thought you were studying tonight,” Lardo asks.

“Dude, my kid’s in crisis, what did you expect from me,” Shitty explains solemnly before turning to Eric. “What’s going on?”

He buries his face in the crook of Jack’s arm. “Charlie won’t answer her _fucking_ phone and what if she’s _dead_ and I didn’t--”

“Whoa, okay,” Shitty says, slow and soothing and something in Eric’s brain starts losing momentum. “Okay. You’re scared, I totally get that, this is a very scary thing. But can we backtrack from the worst case scenario loop for a minute? Can we do that?” He pauses long enough to see that Eric has calmed down a little. “What else might be happening, _other_ than Charlie being dead?”

Eric shakes his head, unable to tear his brain away from the thought.

“Her phone might be off,” Shitty supplies, undeterred. “It might be in her car, or busted, or she might just be asleep--”

“Or really drunk,” Eric adds dismally.

“Or wasted, yeah, that’s a valid human response to the shitshow of a day you’re both dealing with,” Shitty agrees evenly. “It could be any number of things that don’t involve her being _dead_. See what I’m saying?”

Eric nods against Jack’s chest, who tightens his grip a little and smooths his hand down Eric’s spine in response. He’s still crying, and everything hurts _from_ crying, from his brain to his eyes to his chest to his _knees_ what the hell, but his brain isn’t going a hundred and eighty miles an hour with panic anymore and he can sort of get a full breath in without choking on it.

Lardo reaches up to run a hand through his hair again. “Not to be insensitive,” she says gently, “but are you good to head back to the Haus now? I don’t even want to think about what’s happened to this floor.”

He chokes on a small, wet laugh and lets Jack half-lift, half-pull him to his feet. Shitty pulls him away from Jack as soon as he’s standing on his own, burying him in a hug that smells, comfortingly, of coffee and weed and deodorant. “I know, bud,” Shitty mumbles into his hair, cradling the back of his head like he’s holding Eric together with his hands. Eric hugs him back and buries his face in Shitty’s t-shirt.

When he steps (wobbles, really) back from the hug, Jack has his skates and his shoes and Lardo has his coat. Shitty looks down at his socks and turns around. “Hop on, kiddo.”

Lardo drapes Eric’s jacket over his shoulders and follows Jack and Shitty out to where they’re both parked behind the stadium. “You do know this is the student lot, right? And that _students_ you currently are _not_ ,” she asks dryly, trying to lighten the mood a little.

“Yeah, bite me,” Shitty replies amicably, tromping through a layer of snow on the grass to get a more direct route to Jack’s car. Between him and Jack, they get Eric loaded into the passenger seat without his feet touching the cold pavement. Lardo shoves them unceremoniously aside to give Eric one last hug before heading for Shitty’s car. “See you at home,” she calls to Jack as Shitty closes the car door beside him.

* * *

Eric is asleep by the time Jack pulls up in front of the Haus. Jack hesitates before ultimately deciding that he can probably leverage any chirping to a minimum, making carrying him inside the most humane choice. He grabs his workout bag from the trunk on a whim as he walks around the back of the car to get to the passenger seat - at least it has sweatpants in it, if he decides to stay late.

“Hey,” he says softly, hoping to wake Eric only enough to get him on his back to trek inside. Eric mumbles, squeezing his eyes shut before cracking them open. “I know,” Jack says, “arms around my neck and then you can go back to sleep.”

For once, Eric does as he’s told, settling limply against Jack’s spine and burying his nose in the crook of his neck, face hidden by his arm. Jack arranges Eric’s legs on either side of his hips and stands, careful to not smack Eric against the roof of the car. He kicks the door shut, glad he thought to lock the car from inside Eric’s door so he doesn’t have to fish for his keys, and starts the hike up to the front door of the Haus.

The door opens as he’s climbing the porch steps. Ransom looks at him solemnly before stepping aside to let them pass. “Bro,” he says, which might be a greeting, a question, an expression of sympathy or disbelief or desire to help, or any combination thereof.

“He’s good,” Jack says softly, picking the least complicated answer, the one fraught with the fewest _I don’t know_ s. “Just exhausted.”

Ransom nods seriously. “You know what’s going on?”

Chagrined, Jack shakes his head. He wishes he did.

“Fuck, I thought I might be able to get it outta you. Shitty told us it’s not his to tell. In a house like this, that’s scary shit to hear.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Jack assures him, but he can’t help but agree with the sentiment. Haus gossip was a way of life - tell one person, and five minutes later the whole team knew your business, unless it was life-alteringly damaging or legally incriminating. “How bad of a gauntlet is this going to be?”

“Frogs are out for the night, Holster’s got the post-frogs pinned down somewhere. They don’t know anything’s going on, I figure we’ll probably tell them Bitty’s sick in the morning.”

Jack lets go of one of Eric’s knees to clap Ransom on the back in thanks. “I owe you, man.”

“Dude, I’ve been asking for an autographed Pens jersey since I met you, and you have _yet_ to deliver.”

“We’ll see,” Jack says with a thin smile. He starts heading for the stairs, and Ransom takes the hint and retreats into the living room again. The door to Shitty’s-- Lardo’s room is open when he rounds the corner at the top of the stairs. He gives Shitty a nod where he’s sprawled in Lardo’s desk chair and heads for Eric’s room, nudging the door open with his foot.

Jack tosses the comforter back, spares a smile at Señor Bun, and very carefully lets Eric slump off his back and onto the mattress. The movement wakes him and he twists, looking for Jack as he’s tucking Eric’s legs under the blanket. “You’re good,” Jack says softly, resting his palm against the back of Eric’s neck. “Just go back to sleep.”

The telltale creak of the hallway floorboards heralds Shitty in Eric’s doorway. “Yo,” he says, and steps into the room to reveal Lardo right behind him. Jack sighs, settling on the mattress at Eric’s hip. Lardo settles on the floor between Jack’s knee and the desk, and Shitty once again claims the desk chair.

“I shouldn’t be the one telling you this,” Shitty says, with a gravitas he reserves for things like family disputes and championship losses. “But I think Bitty’d understand under the circumstances.”

“You know what this is,” Lardo says, equal parts accusatory, eager, and grim. Shitty nods, and she backhands his shin for good measure.

Shitty twists away and makes a show of kicking back at her, even if his foot never makes contact with her ribs. “I don’t know deets,” he admits, “but... Apparently Bitty had a best friend in high school who wrapped his car around a tree their senior year.” He frowns, and continues, quieter, “He didn’t say as much directly, but... I get the feeling it wasn’t necessarily deer-inflicted, you know?”

“Fuck,” Lardo breathes.

“I guess today’s the anniversary. I mean, dude was in a funk last year about this time, but when he told me what was going on, he said he was planning on talking to his other best friend on the phone, and that seemed to help. I didn’t see anything like this from him.”

“Charlie,” Jack guesses, and Shitty shrugs and nods.

“To my understanding.”

Jack braces his elbows on his knees and presses his face against his palms, listening to Eric breathe behind him. “Okay,” he says finally. “I’ll call my coach and tell him a family emergency came up and I’m not going to be in until noon.”

“Bro, you don’t have to stay. We’ve got him, go play hockey,” Lardo argues quietly, tilting her head back against the desk drawers to look up at him.

Jack exhales, reaching back blindly to rest his palm against Eric’s back. “I’m going to stay,” he says with quiet finality.

“Atta boy, bro,” Shitty says, rolling the desk chair over to give Jack a hug. He clasps his hand to the back of Jack’s neck when they pull apart. “Keep me posted, you hear me? If he’s not good in the morning, I’ll drive back over and stay with him, just call me.”

“Does _no one_ believe I can handle being a manager anymore,” Lardo complains from the floor. “God, see if I call you for advice ever again, jackass.”

Jack smiles and holds out a hand to lever her up from the floor. She grabs it with both of hers and swings herself to her feet, plopping down on the edge of the bed next to him and wrapping her arms around his waist. He let his arm rest over her shoulders and pulled her in tight. “It’s not you, it’s us,” he says, and Lardo kicks at his ankles.

Shitty stands and returns the chair to its rightful place. “Lards’ got his phone, if he asks. Figured I’d let him rest.”

“Let me know if she calls him back?”

“Will do,” she says, and follows Shitty out of the room, closing the door behind them with a quiet click. The light from the hall is reduced to a sliver from under the door, plunging the room into weird tiger-striped shadows from the streetlights outside the window. Jack sighs and kicks his shoes off before easing off the edge of the bed to dig around in his workout bag. He leaves his jeans draped over the back of the desk chair and pulls on his sweatpants. He pulls his t-shirt off - if he’s going to have to wear it tomorrow, he might as well not sleep in it.

Eric makes a sleepy sound and rolls over toward him. Jack grabs his phone out of his jeans pocket and pads over to the bed again. “Hey, you wanna change for bed?”

“You stayin’,” Eric asks, half-awake and clearly confused.

“I didn’t want you to be alone tonight.”

Eric makes a small noise in his throat and pushes himself up, folding the covers back. He slides out of bed and presses himself against Jack’s chest, resting his cheek against his shoulder. “I love you,” he mumbles, his voice unsteady, and Jack kisses the top of his head and pushes him gently toward his dresser.

Jack sits on the edge of the bed again and watches Eric get ready for bed, pulling on a pair of sleep pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt two sizes too big before shuffling back across the room. Jack lets him crawl back against the wall before sliding in next to him, since he’s probably going to have to get up first in the morning. “Shitty told me and Lardo about your friend,” he says softly, once Eric has arranged himself half on top of Jack’s chest, head tucked under his chin. “I’m sorry.”

Eric doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and Jack feels worry start to rise in his chest until he speaks. “Danny was-- I mean, I loved him as much as I loved anybody,” he says, his voice subdued and sad and heavy with grief. He huffs against Jack’s chest, a small, humorless laugh that sounds closer to a sob. “We never-- We weren’t interested in each other like that, but. Small town gays gotta stick together, right? And... I knew. I _knew_. He didn’t--” His voice catches, and when he speaks again, it’s thick like he’s holding back tears. “He didn’t tell me he was gonna do it, but... I knew he wanted to. And I was scared, but I didn’t think--”

Jack gathers Eric up as tight as is still comfortable for both of them, needing something to do with his hands and with the second-hand grief rising in his throat. “For what it’s worth,” he says slowly, trying to keep his own voice even, “this is _not_ your fault. When... There’s nothing you could’ve said, or done differently. I promise, Eric. This isn’t your fault.”

There’s a pause, and a forlorn sniff, and Eric says, his voice small, “I wanna believe that.” A small, muffled sob hiccups out across Jack’s chest. “I can’t lose Charlie too.”

“Shh,” Jack soothes, stroking his palm down Eric’s spine. “I know. And... I can’t-- I can’t promise that everything’s going to be okay,” he says carefully, “but. I’m not going anywhere, no matter what happens. Eric, you are-- The strongest, kindest person I know, and you’re going to get through this, whatever _this_ turns out to be.”

Eric turns his head and presses his lips to Jack’s shoulder, his face wet and cool against his skin. “I love you,” he mumbles, sounding a little desperate. “I just. I really need you to know that.”

“I know,” Jack whispers into Eric’s hair. “I love you too. Get some sleep, you’ve had a long day.”

* * *

When Eric wakes up, his head isn’t killing him as bad as it was, he’s mostly sprawled out over Jack’s chest (which is the best surprise he’s had all week, honestly), and his phone is on the desk underneath a post-it covered in Lardo’s handwriting.

_Shitty talked to Charlie - she’s fine, she just left her phone at home yesterday. She’s really sorry, and really worried about you. Listen to the voicemail, then call around 8am. She says she loves you. We do too._

_Lardo_

He sticks the note to the edge of his desk and pulls his phone down onto Jack’s chest. There is, in fact, a voicemail waiting for him on his phone - he taps on the icon and keys in his PIN before holding the phone to the ear that isn’t pressed against Jack’s shoulder. A pleasantly neutral electronic voice tells him that he has one unheard message, sent at 1:46am on January 28th. “Hey Eric,” Charlie’s voice says, and Eric’s breath catches in his throat. “I, um. I talked to your friend - I haven’t listened to the messages y’all left yet, but he told me about-- He told me that you had a rough day, and I am _so sorry_ , babe, of all the days to leave my damn phone in the bathroom.” She laughs, nervous and wet, like she’s about to start crying. “Well, um. He said y’all were sleeping, which is good. Gimme a call in the morning, I really wanna hear from you.” She takes a deep breath that wobbles at the edges. “I love you, Eric, I really do, I hope y’all’re okay. Call when you get a minute tomorrow.” The message ends, and the electronic voice tells him that he can erase the message by pressing 7, or save it in the archives by pressing 9. With shaking hands, Eric pulls the phone away from his ear and presses the 9 key with his index finger.

Underneath him, Jack stirs. Eric presses his face into Jack’s shoulder, and Jack wraps his arm more firmly across Eric’s lower back. “Hey,” he mumbles, sleepy and concerned.

“She’s okay,” Eric manages, head swimming with relief.

Jack yawns. “Lardo told me,” he says, pressing his nose against Eric’s hair. “I’m really glad.” His fingertips trail across the back of Eric’s shoulders in a slow, sleepy arc, from the ball of one to the ball of the other. “How’re you holdin’ up?”

Eric pauses to take stock - he feels dehydrated as hell, and his voice is going to be shot for a day or two probably, but once the head rush dies down, everything feels more normal than it did all day yesterday. “M’okay,” he says finally. “Or, better anyway. ...Thanks for staying.”

“Mm. Coach gave me the day off when I told him I had a family emergency,” Jack says absently. “Go back to sleep, we can go get breakfast or something later.” He picks up Eric’s phone and squints at the display. “Christ, it isn’t even five. Yeah, go back to sleep.”

Eric snuggles down into Jack’s chest and pulls the comforter up over the back of his neck. “Breakfast sounds good,” he mumbles.

He’s half-tempted to believe Jack’s drifted off again when his fingertips stroke down Eric’s spine and end up with his palm pressed flat against the small of his back. “I love you,” he murmurs.

“I love you too,” Eric mumbles back, and drifts back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on Charlie and Danny:  
> \- Danny did kill himself by crashing his car in January of their senior year.  
> \- Bitty doesn't exactly blame himself for Danny's death, but he does feel like he might've been able to stop it.  
> \- Charlie did figure skating with Bitty until he started with the hockey team.  
> \- Charlie now manages the rink in Bitty's hometown, and teaches skating lessons until her dad kicks it or she figures out a way to leave.  
> \- Charlie and Bitty didn't date in high school, but they didn't not let people think they were dating, either. They were skating partners, after all.  
> \- Charlie is a lesbian, Danny was gay.


End file.
